He had it all wrong. Over the years, we’d often discussed firearms, but I’d never shot one. Mom would never allow it. This was our big chance for some serious .38 caliber male bonding. “I’ll bet you’re a better shot than Dirty Harry and Jesse James all rolled into one.”
That one softened my old man up a bit. But he still didn’t go for it.
I gave it one last try. Told him we needed to be real men. Blow some shit to pieces.
That one made him almost laugh.
“So?” I said. “Deal?”
After some serious brow furrowing, he said: “Deal.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The Dump wasn’t really a dump. It was just a huge undeveloped wasteland area. Seen from one angle it was nothing more than a huge sandbox filled with tons of tick-infested pine trees. From another angle it was the last bastion of freedom on the edge of a dead-end town. For as far as the eye could see—spent condoms and bullet casings, empty beer bottles, blackened and abandoned bonfire pits, tire donuts dug deep into dirt. Cops rarely patrolled the area. They’d often park just outside the Dump’s entrance, along the highway shoulder. Once partiers were gutsy or stupid enough to leave, the rules changed. The boys in blue would set off their cherry tops, light up the night like a disco, pull them over, and dance them down to the station house.
Yet while in the Dump, it was white-trash Disneyland all the way—teenagers hopped up on black beauties and raging hormones screwing like jackhammer jackrabbits in the back of parked cars; hard rockers blaring Black Sabbath and Rainbow from muscle cars, tripping balls, barking at the moon; Bud-guzzling, redneck Pineys zooming along in reverse in rebel flag-decaled, souped-up street racers, while blasting Bulldog revolvers, and Vietnam-era M 36 handguns out open windows.
The best time to have any privacy in the Dump was on Sunday mornings. That was when everyone else was either at church confessing their sins, or at home sleeping off massive hangovers.
My old man produced a pistol from his shoulder holster. “This is a Smith and Wesson K-38 Masterpiece Model 14 target revolver,” he said. “It has a six-inch barrel and adjustable sight.” As he extolled the gun’s virtues, there was no longer any hint of that downtrodden, wifeless man from the night before. Weapon in hand, he was back to full-on cop mode. He aimed the revolver at a distant bottle target we’d set up, and squeezed off a shot.
The bottle exploded in a boom of glittery bits. A spooked blue jay cut across the ashen November sky. It passed pine tree after pine tree casting dull shadows, just like that math word problem and my home with all their shadows. My old man squeezed off another shot.
This time, a forest rabbit—a rabbit not much unlike the one I’d briefly owned as a child until my pet jinx got it—skittered across the landscape.
My old man continued firing shot after shot. Bottle after bottle exploded.
As he continued shooting, I recalled something he’d once told me about guns. How when a round fired that meant it was a good round. But if the hammer fell and there was no explosion, it was a dud. On the other hand, if the hammer fell and you only heard a pop, it was a squib. That meant there wasn’t enough gunpowder in the cartridge casing. That was a dangerous situation because it meant the bullet was still lodged in the barrel, and if you fired off another round that bullet would impact upon the squib and the gun would explode from the built-up energy that hadn’t been released.
All that built up energy. “C’mon,” I said. “Hurry up already. Lemme shoot.”
My old man reloaded the pistol, handed it over.
I held it like it was a newborn baby.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You’re a teenager. Grip it like you mean it.” My old man—all 5’11” of muscle and stoic looks that I got gypped out of in the womb—pulled me close. Braced his right shoulder against mine, reached around with that hand, wrapped my fingers securely around the revolver’s rosewood grip, and repositioned my shooting arm. He slung his other arm around my scrawny left shoulder, grabbed my free hand, and cupped it beneath my shooting hand for support.
As we aimed at another bottle target, my eyes watered, palms sweated, trigger hand trembled.
“Take it easy,” said my old man. “I got you.”
He held me tighter. For a change, his meaty grip on me felt warm and reassuring. So was his scent of sweat and Old Spice. He began giving commands: “Maintain a strong stance. High hand grasp and hard grip on the weapon. Keep your eye on the front sight. Gun steady on the target. Depress the trigger with the end of your finger.”
I did my best to obey. Squeezed off a shot. The noise was far louder than the sonic walls I’d built with my bedroom stereo. This new noise filled my ears with high, sustained, feedback fuzz. Made my head heavy metal. The gun’s recoil sent a sharp jolt up my arms, traveled deep into my shoulders, my brain, and ignited brilliant, blinding fireworks behind my eyes.
“Wow,” I said. “That was intense.”
My old man gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Not bad. But you were nowhere near the target.”
He continued offering suggestions. But each time I’d get one thing right, another would go wrong. Right then, my head felt as cluttered and jumbled as all those boxes my old man hadn’t yet delivered to Mom. My ears ached from all the gun noise. My hand and arm ached from the kickback. I couldn’t have hit the target if it were right in front of me.
For a while, my old man kept cool, probably more out of pity than anything else. Like me, he’d been an only child. Part of him sympathized, knowing how difficult it had been to grow up feeling lonely and frightened. Then there was another part of him, the part that seemed to hate my guts for having to watch me live through that hell all over again. Eventually, the sweat stains beneath the arms of his starched button-up grew much larger than normal. “Goddammit,” he finally snapped. “Wake up. You’re off in your own world. Just like your mother.”
Just like your mother. Four words he often used when we fought. Because I slightly resembled Mom in looks and manners this was his way of battling her without battling her.
“I’m trying,” I said. “Just relax already, will ya.”
“Don’t tell me to relax, Mark. I’m in no mood to cater to your bullshit.”
I recalled something Mom had once read to me from the Book of Corinthians—how love was supposed to be patient and kind. Obviously, my old man had missed that lesson. I tried to bolt, but he clamped down on me.
I struggled to break free.
He clenched tighter, forced my shooting hand into the air. “Easy. You’re holding a loaded weapon.”
What a load of shit. I stomped on his foot, then quickly applied a handgun disarming technique he’d once taught me. Had I executed the reverse wristlock perfectly, I would’ve dislocated his shoulder or broken his wrist. That wasn’t the case. Still, I’d performed the move well enough to serve its purpose.
Code 10-47: subject armed. Gun in hand, I took a few steps back.
“You sonofabitch,” said my old man, shaking the pain from his hand. “Drop the weapon.”
I didn’t budge. I just stood there recalling a time when I was nine. My old man had whipped the shit out of me after discovering that still another one of my pets—a guinea pig—had died. My old man called me a lazy, irresponsible little shit. But I’d saved up weeks of allowance to buy that animal a top-notch aquarium home, complete with a drip water bottle, along with fresh litter, fruits, and vegetables. No way could I begin to explain my pet curse to my old man, when I couldn’t understand it myself. Even if I’d known what to say, my old man wouldn’t have listened. For days after that beating, I had black-and-blue belt marks on the backs of my legs.
Shaking me from that memory was my old man saying: “I’m serious, Mark. Drop the gun. Now.” He took a step forward.
I gripped the .38 tighter.
He took a few steps back. “Just relax, Mark. There’s no need
to do anything foolish.”
Back in those days, I figured my old man to be the root of all my problems, especially when it came to Mom’s leaving. So I let him have it way louder than that gun. “Screw you,” I railed. “I hate you.”
If that wasn’t nuts enough, things got even crazier. Felt more out of my body than in it. I trained the gun on my old man’s heart, pulled the trigger. First there was the boom. What I heard next was the keening, dying cry of me, not me. With that cry, my old man was down on the ground, ribs heaving, body shuddering. His blood was redder than the sumac leaves that lay around his body. All that red—red the color of emergencies and rage—kept pouring from his chest, all over those red, red leaves.
I blinked once, twice, rattled myself from that murderous vision.
There I was again, still holding that gun on my very alive old man. And while I’d often secretly wished him dead, no way could I actually make it happen. I dropped the gun to the ground amidst those red, red leaves.
My old man holstered the weapon. Then he seized me by my white sweater, dragged me to his off-duty Chevy Caprice. Once there, he got in my face and flared: “Listen good, shit for brains. You have no idea how much I loved your mother.” He dosed me with a couple smacks upside the head.
To a degree, I figured I deserved his abuse. But after he continued dosing me, enough was enough. I tried hitting back, but he blocked the shot, punched me in the gut.
I doubled over. All the air left me.
He slammed me up against the car, and said: “If you ever point a gun at me like that again you’re dead. Got it?”
I didn’t respond. I just stared at all the wrinkles across his forehead. Since Mom had left those wrinkles had multiplied by ten.
My old man smacked me again. “Got it?”
“Got it,” I choked out.
He shook his head. Then he glanced down at the ground, then up at the clear blue sky, then back at me. “Get in the damn car.”
Once inside, my old man jammed it into drive. We sped off in a kicked-up cloud of dust.
When we reached blacktop, he power-punched the gas. Kicked the V8 into overdrive. The speedometer climbed to sixty-five. Seventy. We zoomed past shotgun-blasted road signs, past a shotgun-blasted, ten-point buck strapped to the hood of a pick-up, ready to be stuffed by Jimmy’s dad, or turned into venison stew. We barreled past the Rainbow Casket Company, the cemetery, and, looming ahead in the distance: the Crab Creek Nuclear Power Plant. As a child, I’d often tried running away from all of Blackwater’s death and destruction. But each and every time, I never got very far. Even before reaching the end of my block, I was always stopped by the same old fears—the fear of being alone, or of losing Mom’s dinners like Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu with Buttered Rice. As for Grandmother, once I left her, I figured I was a goner. The thought of that alone was scarier than my scary town. I was always back home before my parents ever knew I’d left.
My old man locked eyes with mine in the rearview mirror.
“Well?” I taunted. “You gonna hit me again, or what?”
He reached back to do so, but instead offered a different kind of jab, more like a knock-out punch: “Your mother got off easy when she left.”
Chapter 5
The whole drive home after our Dump incident, my old man had only gotten quieter and quieter, meaty hands gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter. That was when he was to be most feared. Not when he’d flare and rage like a roaring .38. But when he was like a squib, when all his unreleased emotions were shoved down deep inside. Then, there was no telling what the next trigger would be that would blow everything to shit.
As for me, no amount of quietly humming Springsteen, Pink Floyd, or any one of my other sonic walls bands had been enough to shield me from my own anger. I banged my fist against my thigh. Cursed my old man under my breath. By the time he’d skidded into the driveway—leaving burnt rubber on an otherwise pristine, oil-stain-free driveway—my jaw ached, my thigh: bruised. But that didn’t stop me from bolting from the car, running to my room, and locking the door behind me. I plopped down onto the warm carpeted floor, grabbed the phone, punched numbers.
Grandma picked up before the first ring had completed. “Hello?” Her voice seemed slightly more ghost than gregarious.
“You okay?” I asked.
She told me she was fine, but I could hear some odd rustling over the line. “Everything, alright over there?”
“Sorry, sweetie. My skin’s been a little itchy lately.” Normally, Grandmother might’ve cracked wise, saying maybe she should get some Mary Kay hand cream from Mom, but instead she said: “How are things with you and your father?”
I couldn’t so much hear as feel my old man angrily pace the carpeted hall to shreds just outside my room. I lowered my voice. “Not so good.”
“How do you mean?”
“Let’s just say we’re not seeing eye to eye.”
“You can stay with me if you need.”
I considered that one. Then I recalled Mom’s words before she bolted: how I needed to get used to people leaving me. I knew Grandmother would eventually do the same, except for different reasons than Mom. No way did I want to be there when that happened. Then I thought of Jimmy. “Thanks anyway,” I said. “I gotta go. I love you.” I hadn’t even given my grandmother a chance to say I love you back. I’d already disconnected the line.
But just as I was about to phone Jimmy, I recalled our most recent argument. A week prior, the prized Lee Majors Six Million Dollar Man action figure Mom had given me back when I was ten had gone missing. I’d accused Jimmy of the theft. Told him to keep his greasy Italian fingers off my things. The very next day I noticed the neighbor’s dog dragging his butt all funny across the lawn while taking a dump. After he’d finished, I spotted a plastic arm sticking up out of the dark, steaming pile. It was Lee Majors’ arm.
I was about to pull out my Ouija board, ask it whether or not I should phone Jimmy when I figured, screw it. Way too much work. Besides, it would probably give me that weird E-A-T response anyway. So I punched numbers. Jimmy picked up on the third ring. Before he had a chance to say hello, and before I had a chance to worry any further about his response, I was already saying: “I nearly shot my dad.”
Jimmy didn’t respond.
Great, I thought. Lee Fucken Majors. “Didja hear me?” I said.
Finally, Jimmy said, “So wait. Was it an accident, or were you trying to kill him?”
I didn’t know how to respond. While my old man and I were filled with more conflict than cordiality, talking any further about shooting him was way too weird—the type of crime Blackwater’s brain-nuked, inbred Piney locals committed against relatives on a fairly regular basis. “Look,” I pleaded. “Can I stay at your place for a while?”
Jimmy could’ve easily said no. Ever since meeting back in fourth grade, we’d had our history of brawling and branding each other with ridiculous names. Like one time in fifth grade: Jimmy bought a turtle that soon died of unknown causes. I’d bought a hamster that soon died of a respiratory infection. For a good year, whenever we got pissed at one another, I’d call Jimmy Jack the Ripper. He’d call me Son of Sam.
Still, our bond was tight. Besides our shared pet jinx, we also loved martial arts and getting wasted. We were also both only children in our own way. Jimmy’s older brother had moved up to Hoboken that year. And another thing: we shared a common nemesis, Terry. Every summer, he was one of the drunk, muscled thugs that would hang out at the Third Lake alongside the likes of Jimmy and me. Eventually, Terry would stop harassing Jimmy. I wasn’t as lucky.
After some dead air in telephoneland, Jimmy said: “Lemme talk to my pops.”
Within minutes, his dad was out front in his tobacco-brown, black-interior, ’55 Chevy pickup called Bessie, after the blues singer Bessie Smith. Bessie was equipped with an original V8 engine, wrap-around wi
ndshield, egg-crate grille, 80-watt in-dash speakers, flame-cut steel spider web gauge panel, stainless steel skull gearshift knob, and running board behind the cab door.
Bessie was very cool, but not as cool as Jimmy’s dad.
As a young man, Mr. Gigliotti had served in the army during the Korean War. Wielded a Thompson .45-caliber sub-machine gun with far more ease than I’d handled my old man’s pistol. Now in his early fifties, Jimmy’s dad was still lean, agile, strong-armed, partly from brandishing that submachine gun, partly from being a semi-pro bowler in the fifties and sixties, and partly his rigorous taxidermy work. He sported a thin inky mustache, an intense, self-assured gaze, and slicked-back, salt-and-pepper hair. He also wore basically one style of clothes—flannel shirt and overalls. Why waste any time worrying about what to wear, he’d always say, when he could instead utilize that brain space pondering his family and taxidermy. Mr. Gigliotti’s badass attitude plus that standard outfit of his made him a rural version of the suave and menacing John Dillinger from his FBI wanted poster. This was before the poor health, before the oxygen tank. He seemed almost happy to be at my house, even though it couldn’t have been easy. Jimmy’s dad stepped out of his pickup.
Once my old man spotted him through the front living room window, he said: “What the hell’s he doing here?”
“Helping.” I opened the door for Mr. Gigliotti.
My old man shot him an interrogation-room glare.
Jimmy’s dad flashed back his own searing, gray-eyed gaze. “How you doing, Chief McDaniel?”
My old man kept up his glare. “That isn’t alcohol on your breath is it, Ray?”
“No, sir. I’m clean as a whistle.”
“I highly doubt that,” said my old man.
My old man always gave Jimmy’s dad the third degree. Not only did he think Mr. Gigliotti was a lousy bum, unworthy of my adoration, but he’d also busted me a couple times for having beer on my breath when returning from Jimmy’s—no matter how much Binaca I’d blasted or how many Tic Tac’s I’d eaten.
New Jersey Me Page 5